Conscious
by bj
Summary: Her eyes are open so she figures she's conscious. Delia turns thirty.


it's: conscious  
by: bj  
in sum: her eyes are open so she figures she's conscious.  
label: delia. angst.  
rating: pg13.  
legalities: don't own, don't sue.  
sissies: i know you'll have no spoilers.  
i say: delia turns thirty. ephram, new york, omc.  
archive: ask and it shall (probably) be given.  
you say: all comments appreciated, answered, and archived. allcanadiangirl@lycos.com.  
  
  
conscious  
  
She falls from the balcony entirely by accident. She had been sitting on the railing drinking a glass of wine, watching Broadway, thinking about how in Everwood she would have been asleep for two hours by now, even with the time difference.  
  
Thinking about her deadline and Ephram's piano sitting crated in her living room. She would call him tomorrow, demand he remove it. She would offer to pay shipping herself-he would refuse out of guilt, and the thing would be gone in a week (this is Mark, he's helping).  
  
She had been thinking about how her birthday has always been exactly three weeks after their mother's, and she knows he celebrated that with a cigarette and a selection of Jolson (come and sing, my hands are getting tired).  
  
She went to the cemetery in Brooklyn and rocked over the grave, she left a chunk of jade on the stone. Saul used to say it was too expensive a leaving, what would the other visitors think? He was raised Orthodox, lived unobservant. What did he know about stones for the dead? And she would tell him that it was for her mother, not for anybody else, and jade was her mother's favourite.  
  
Thinking about the carton of paper beside her computer and how it's supposed to be full of a play by the end of next week. All she can write is this stupid story about her mother's thirtieth birthday. She doesn't even remember it first-hand, she wasn't alive, just the telling of it in her mother's voice and her father's voice and Ephram's voice (if I don't tell you, you'll have nothing to tell yourself).  
  
There was a ring, and it was before Andy could afford the real thing but he told Julia different because she wanted it so much and the appraisal was, classic Brown understatement, a shock. To this day, she has to consciously remind herself that it was a rhinestone, not a diamond, the romance was so strong.  
  
And she ends it with a soliloquoy describing her mother's face in the casket. She has gotten so depressing even Ephram noticed (Delia, you used to smile).  
  
Even Saul phoned. He was stilted. She didn't make it easy for him. Her first birthday since the divorce. He wished her well, asked after Ephram, enquired about work and about life in general and she didn't ask him one question. She doesn't care.  
  
Twenty-one days. He could count that, couldn't he? They're alone in the world, couldn't he count to twenty-one for her? His nearly-empty Greenwhich apartment, playing air (I sound better without the piano), shadowy rent-splitting person somewhere nearby.  
  
Could he forget the number he lived at for nearly a year? Or maybe just the sister he's had his entire life (we're not conjoined, for fuck's sake).  
  
Twenty-nine years and too many days they took care of her, switching off mother/father/brother, turning, from New York to Colorado to California (I don't want to go to Julliard, I want to go to LA) to New York (LA was a mistake, there's this guy in New York named Saul). And she wrote a lot and the last four years she made more money than he did.  
  
Now she can't get past a story about delusion, lies, love. Before he went, Ephram said something about a cd (maybe Carnegie live, I don't care, but-Dad would be happy).  
  
Her birthday will always be the day before her father died. One year tomorrow (I need to live with you, I can't be on my own right now). Money, she bought her apartment; the house in Colorado, Ephram refuses to sell it because he loves owning a piece of the town; two cars for the used lot, more money; boxes and boxes of the things that made her a child.  
  
Islanders, Rangers, Mets, Yankees, Sox, Avalanche, Nuggets, Miners, Lakers, Kings, Clippers, Raiders (I know you hate football, but it was free). Yearbooks. Diploma. Postcards on which she scribbled poetry for her father and never sent.  
  
Maybe the door had opened and she didn't hear his footsteps around the piano, blame the human and mechanical traffic.  
  
His presence at her elbow is unexpected and he reaches for her arm just as she starts, starts to fall. "Delia-"  
  
The lights of Broadway and the green stripe on his shirt recede. She feels she's fading into the sidewalk. The glass is perfect, the last drink flashing out in an arc of diamonds, her hand reaching for it, his reaching for her-  
  
His mouth and her eyes are open so she figures she's conscious. It's only fifteen feet, but it hurts fully and completely.  
  
*happy birthday to me.*  
  
  
End. 


End file.
